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Jonathan Bogart: I like the floating ambient noises in the background underneath the drum ‘n’ bass clatter, I like the clave rhythm that pops on the chorus, giving it a salsa breakdown, and I especially like the hint of sleek jazz in the vocals, especially juxtaposed against the caricature of a grime accent on the rap. Nothing that reminds me this much of En Vogue can be a bad thing.[8]

Alexander Ostroff:Katy B, the song’s writer, would have attacked the verses with more unselfconscious joy. Still, the chorus is a winner, and when the middle eight rap starts, it makes me hope that RD will be to UK Funky what Mis-Teeq were to garage.[8]

Hazel Robinson: Look like the Sugababes, taste like Mis-Teeq; both of these things are good. I took a punt on it after I spent quarter of an hour at a bus stop looking at a poster for it and have been listening to it three or four times a day ever since: an awesome dancehall-referencing, garage aesthetic UK girl group track with a rap is not all that frequent a discovery and I’ll be watching this lot with great interest.[9]

Brad Shoup: Another single that scans as a song about dancing, but actually seems to be about elemental decay. I love the freestyle chorus, so kudos to Katy B, but as a first single for a girl group, I expected something more mythologizing.[4]

Iain Mew: This has some good use of space, especially the bridge slowly drifting into the background so the rap afterwards comes as a real injection of energy. I like the loping beat as well, and the slightly homemade feel has a definite charm. It’s lacking something (a commanding chorus?) to really make it special, but there’s certainly some promise.[7]

Kat Stevens: The ginger one is less Siobhan Donaghy and more Keith Flint, but otherwise the newly-reformed Sugababes 1.0 may have to watch out for this lot. I mean, they can dance in time with each other and everything! Perhaps the Sugababes should ring up Keith anyway?[8]

Alfred Soto: Crystal Waters could have sung the chorus in 1991, but her wry nasality acknowledged its limits. In a couple of spots RD struggles to reach notes beyond her reach. And a hungry vocal is exactly what this post-house anthem needs to transcend the boilerplate.[6]

Jer Fairall: Verses traded so mechanically they sound as if they’re being performed under duress, a limp chorus that fails to raise the song’s already sluggish pulse, and an early ’90s sonic fetishism that already manages to render tired most of what Emeli Sande has made sound so fresh again as of late. No song that tries to equate desire with literal heat should ever sound this tepid.[3]

2 Responses to “RD – Got Me Burnin’”

Something I didn’t notice until just now is how, in the video, they have these dudes just standing around looking brooding/topshop model-esque and occasionally giving doe-eyed looks into the camera, then they (the dudes) pour water over themselves, strip, etc- interesting on a dynamic front.

Ridiculously, this failed to breach the Top 200 (I think), despite Radio 1 support. So many girl groups have had ‘big’ launches in the UK this year (of which I think RD could turn [or could have turned] out to be the best) and yet they’ve all pretty much failed to live up to them, success wise. ‘What could it alll mean?’ etc